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Opinion: Editorials

From the Editorial Advisory Board: Rafting and quaffing

Posted:
01/22/2016 07:50:50 PM MST

This week's topic: The National Park Service is struggling to decide whether to ban alcoholic beverages on river rafting trips. What do you think?

Rafting the Grand Canyon has been at the top of my bucket list since the last day of my first raft trip through the Canyon. I've rafted the Canyon twice since then. It always goes right back to the top of the list.

The two most welcome developments in river running over the past generation have been self-bailing boats and craft beer in cans. Rafting, however, is hardly an excuse to drink beer. When you're rowing your own boat, it's knuckle-busting work that requires collaboration, self-awareness, and risk management. Choose your crew wisely.

I've never encountered alcohol-related trash. My crewmates will wear the same clothes for a week but are mortified if a crumb hits the ground. Drunk or not, they will find that crumb and put it the trash.

We've only had one alcohol-related encounter with the rangers. They were floating by around dinner, and called out, "What's for supper?" The correct answer was chicken parmesan, but my three-beer buddy yelled back, "Humpback chub! Want some?" Humpback chub is an endangered species. The rangers pulled ashore.

The only loud drunks that I've encountered were on the Selway, a river with no sense of humor. It thrashed them stupid, and sent their beer downstream to us. Evolution in action. They asked if we found their beer. We lied. They knew it, but were in no position to argue.

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The Park Service does a good job managing the river. They won't screw this one up.

My limited experience with the activity dates back to the mid-'80s, when I was still skinny. It was a lazy drift down the Chattahoochee River in Georgia. Two rafts for the people, one for the beer.

From recent headlines I assumed people were dying, creating havoc, or leaving huge messes behind. All of this has happened of course, but what prompted the government bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior Inspector General's office to ponder a ban was the behavior of its own employees. So naturally they blame something else entirely: alcohol.

Randy National Park Service guides preying on female tourists is the problem, and alcohol was their social lubricant of choice. The problem isn't with booze, it's with sexual predators working for the Park Service as guides.

Over the course of 15 years there have been 35 incidents of harassment reported involving three boatmen (or "river rats" as they like to call themselves) and one supervisor. While no such behavior should be tolerated, this doesn't sound like a very widespread problem, so to speak. Eliminating alcohol doesn't prevent the proclivities of young outdoorsmen seeking to put notches in the handle of their oars.

Three of the four perpetrators were suspended, then retired (with full benefits — it's a government gig), and one of them returned to work. Commercial companies aren't affected by the ban. Perhaps the private sector can take care of employee problems more efficiently than the government.

The National Park Service should stop struggling with the question of alcohol beverages on river rafting trips and maintain the status quo. It has so many other issues to be concerned about.

2016 is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service and our national parks — the crown jewels of our country and truly the envy of the world — are in desperate need of maintenance and repairs. The National Park Service estimates $11.5 billion in deferred maintenance will be required just to make necessary repairs. Bridges, roads, trails, paths, buildings, bathrooms, everything needs repair after too many years of a Congress being unresponsive to our park service's requests for help. In Colorado alone, there are deferred maintenance projects with an estimated cost of $205 million.

According to the Washington Post, the national parks generate $30 billion in revenues each year and account for more than 250,000 American jobs. Our national parks, seashores and historic sites provide critical habitat for wildlife and supply clean drinking water for communities throughout the country. And Americans love their parks. An estimated 292.8 million people visited the parks in 2014. But unless, they receive some significant funding, our parks will become increasingly degraded and even dangerous. Portions of some parks are already closed and many services have been cut back or eliminated. To paraphrase one of our presidential hopefuls, "Let's make our national parks great again!"

As a kid out here, Gregory Creek at ankle-depth tested my courage, and the pool at Eldorado was an unimaginable risk. When we moved east, one fishing trip off Cape Ann exposed my far greater likelihood to feed the fish than to catch them. Just the thought of whitewater rafting conjures commode-hugging.

Experiments as a college freshman quickly exposed another aspect of tender innards beyond seasickness: rebellion against alcohol far sooner than I'm overtaken by the customary destructive exuberance.

Canoeing in the Boundary Waters or sailing a Sunfish at the Res, and steady sipping into a peaceful haze — those are the liquid limits. Stick with hiking on mostly solid ground. But, several decades in the back country have exposed the same depredations as misguided rafters, sloshed or sober: unnecessary fire pits, latrine remains, trash of all kinds including bottles and cans a hundred or more years old, and the amazing damage city folk can do with knives and hatchets. And of course solitude breached by drunks encamped nearby.

But, busting them means ranger cops on the prowl. I'd rather tolerate the boozers than become a prowl-ee, rangers shaking me down for contraband. They have enough to do now, and from what I can see are overwhelmed.

Blotto rafters present some safety hazard, but only to themselves. These are rafts, not cars. Anyone boarding with a toasted guide deserves the result, far beyond any duty of society for salvation.

The National Park Service banned alcoholic beverages on its rafting trips last year, although the ban doesn't apply to commercial companies the public can hire, so I don't see this question as one with which they are currently struggling. But it is interesting to look at the reasons for the ban, and to question whether this was an appropriate action.

In 2014 a formal complaint against the NPS alleged a pattern of sexual abuse by guides and supervisors on rafting trips over a period of 15 years. The report from the federal investigation that resulted was released this month, and confirms a pattern of misconduct that was not properly handled when reported.

In my book, when an employee is engaging in sexual harassment of other employees, that employee is disciplined and dismissed. The fact that the NPS did not handle complaints properly, and allowed a culture of harassment to exist, points to a need to overhaul employment practices including training, monitoring, and discipline.

Good guidelines on alcoholic consumption by those enjoying rafting trips make sense, but an outright ban is not the appropriate action. I've taken trips by private companies in the Grand Canyon and the Yampa River, and on those trips I felt that the amount of alcohol consumption was reasonable and appropriately monitored by the guides. I've loved having a couple of glasses of wine or beer with new friends.

It's not acceptable for the NPS to deal with their scandal by implementing a bogus policy that punishes the wrong people.

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